


cat·a·lyst (noun)

by redvineshark



Series: romance on the borderline (tonight) [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, and there was only one bed....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 02:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redvineshark/pseuds/redvineshark
Summary: vienna / vienna.1957 - Present Day
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: romance on the borderline (tonight) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2216106
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	cat·a·lyst (noun)

**Author's Note:**

> a prequel/sequel to song for the asking, but you dont Have to read that to understand this

There are a multitude of things that culminate to this one, great big thing. But mostly, it begins in Vienna.

_ Vienna, Austria. 1957. _

His assignment is something along the lines of a temptation, as they almost always are, but he’s more preoccupied with seeing the sights. He’s never fancied himself much of a tourist, but there’s a first time for everything and the place really is quite nice. There are horse drawn carriages amongst the railcars that he half considers taking up for a ride, but in the end he doesn’t much see the appeal of going so slow, much less pulled by an animal who will likely stop to shit in the street. So instead he takes the bentley. It is in the bentley, precisely three and a quarter’s minutes after having this thought, that he spots Aziraphale enjoying a rather lovely sachertorte (and consequently swerves around a group of pedestrians while performing a very illegal u-turn.) 

Aziraphale is hardly bothered by this at all, because (as aforementioned) he is very consumed in consuming his sachertorte. He is outside of a quaint little restaurant, on an intricately carved white chair, and he is here on a mission of his own. In five days time, he is to stop a little girl by the name of Magdalena Becker from drowning. But, as it is, cake.

“Angel!” Crowley haphazardly clambers out of and around the bentley, to the tune of an orchestra of angry honking, and sits across from Aziraphale at the small outdoor dining table. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale sputters through a sip of a red trockenbeerenauslese he’s taken quite a liking to. “Whatever are you doing _here?”_

“I could ask the same of you!”

“Well. Don’t make a habit of running into me.” He smiles coyly into his glass, and in a blink there is an identical glass sat in front of Crowley, which argues otherwise.

“Right. Then I’ll seek you out deliberately, that any better?” 

Aziraphale doesn’t reply, just looks aside and smiles. And then he says, for formality’s sake: “Sorry, would you like some?”   
  


Now, you must understand that in a sum of 6,000-odd years, their dinners (and lunches, and breakfasts, and all sorts of snacks) have always gone like this: Aziraphale will order something decadent and indulgent, and Aziraphale’s company is plenty of both on Crowley’s part, and so he is content to simply watch. He does, however, so love himself a good wine. It is not that he’s  _ never  _ tried human food, he liked oysters and pheasant and even alligator well enough, and a series of good large meals had ended in his being in and out of a lovely nap for the past century or so. But it’s not something he actively partakes in often enough to make a show of stealing from Aziraphale’s plate. And yet. “Sure, I’ll snag a bite.”

  
Aziraphale blinks in surprise, raises his brows. Then he nods slowly, and carves out a good bite of it with his fork, and cups a hand beneath it to catch any crumbs or dripping whipped cream. And then he feeds it to Crowley, who blinks in surprise right back. Luckily on his part, he is wearing sunglasses. However small, this is a discrepancy in their routine. And it is what one might call a catalyst.

In 1960, a year that has not happened yet, one Mr Edward Lorenz is working on a computer. Mr Lorenz is a meteorologist, that being someone who finds the mood of the sky on any particular day. He is clacking away on his weather program, when he notes that any miniscule change in said program results in complete unpredictability one way or the other, on the state of the sky. He likens the smallness of these changes to that of a beautiful winged bug. Years later, a movie is made in 2004 that Crowley hates with a passion. But the year is 1957, and still we witness a perfect example of the butterfly effect.

Crowley swallows. Thicker than he needs to for what he’s chewing, but he’s trying not to look at Aziraphale at the moment and he’s never been very good at that. Then, because his angel has always been rather good at mucking things up, Aziraphale says “Oh! Let me get that,” and tenderly wipes a trace of whipped cream from Crowley’s cheek. He’s quite sure he’s about ten seconds from discorporating. When he dares to look back up, Aziraphale is humming around his own bite, attention returned to the sachertorte which had admittedly been very good indeed. He is using the same fork. Crowley notes this. He notes it very deeply.

“Thanks.” He says, but it comes out croaked and Aziraphale looks at him with some great deal of concern.

“Alright?”

“Peachy.”

Aziraphale gazes at him skeptically, then finishes off the last few bits on his plate while Crowley tops off the wine and Thinks. He does not stop Thinking until Aziraphale clears his throat, shakes out his cloth napkin, and waves over a lurking waiter for the bill. Crowley treats him. “There’s no need for that-”

“Oh hush.” Crowley rolls his eyes, which he knows Aziraphale can spot even with the sunglasses, and stands to lean against the bentley. “Well, while we’re here. Lift?”

Aziraphale straightens out his vest and sighs, delicately pushing his chair back into place. “Ah. I don’t...have anywhere to be.”

“We’ll have to think of something.” Crowley grins as Aziraphale nods and slides into the passenger seat, immediately fastening his seatbelt for what will likely be a very turbulent ride. “So...where are we off to, hm? The Hofberg? Kunsthistorisches?”

“...Crowley?”   
  
“Yes, angel?”   
  
“Have you ever seen an opera?”

He hasn’t. Until now, that is. He’s done up nicer than usual, and the both of them can admit he cleans up well for a demon. Aziraphale hardly had to change to be formal. Even if he wasn’t in a constant state of fancy outdated suits, there’s regality in the way he carries himself. Crowley doubts there’s a place in the world he couldn’t stroll right into. They’re up in the gallery, the highest circle, which Aziraphale giggles about through a broken whisper that “you know, these seats are often referred to as...the gods.”

Luckily, both from the height and the silly little glasses they’re both using, he gets the opportunity to shed his sunglasses in public. And funnily enough, he thinks the damn things suit Aziraphale far too well. He finds himself paying more attention to the angel than the opera, so the music serves as more of a soundtrack to Aziraphale’s reactions. He makes little astonished gasps, tears up at some points, gets all red faced and crooked and furrows his brow. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”   
  
“Yes. Quite.” Crowley coughs a little into his fist and tries his best to keep his eyes on stage, but at this point he’s too lost to know much of what’s going on. He is supremely aware, however, when Aziraphale grips his arm tight at a series of intense and clamored notes from the company, and he watches as a few stray tears escape. As it dies down in the last few minutes, curtains drawing to a close, he turns and settles a hand upon the one still clutching his arm. “It’s only a song, angel.”   
  
“Oh, you’d think that, wouldn’t you?” It comes out teasing but watery, and he pauses to dry his eyes with a handkerchief tucked into his coat. 

“Just a bit...lost is all.”    
  


“You can’t be serious! It was captivating!” He looks purely scandalized. “Why, I’ve always loved Prokofiev, but even I’m a tad stricken.”

“All I saw was the lot of them in robes singing loud enough to deafen a bat.” They’re walking arm in arm back to the bentley, but neither seem to notice, or at least not pay much mind.

“But it’s more than that, it’s a  _ story,  _ Crowley. Oh, that poor, dear girl.” He sniffles again, adjusts himself as Crowley opens the passenger door for him. “And what a horrible, horrible man.”

Crowley smacks his mouth a couple of times. “Right-o, yes. Devastating.”

Aziraphale sighs heavy and swats at him. “Well if you’re going to be like that about it, we’ll not go to an opera again.”

And then, because he loses the nerve to say he’ll go because Aziraphale enjoyed it, he says: “Well, the music wasn’t all bad.” He gets a quiet harumph in return. “Where are you staying then?”

“Palais Coburg.” 

Crowley whistles. “Pretty penny, that one. I’ll drop you.”

“...You know, they do have a splendid selection of wines. You could...stay, if you’d like. For a drink.”

Crowley hums like he needs more than a second to think it over. In truth, he would sooner have a drink with Aziraphale than anything else in the world. “They’d better have a Cheval Blanc.”   
  


Aziraphale beams at him. “Yes, I think that’d do quite nicely.”

They do. A lovely ‘33, but neither care much about the aging as long as it’s wine. Aziraphale does fancy a Bordeaux above all else though, so he’s appreciative enough to order up more wine than food. Still, he asks for no small sum of marillenknödel, and (because it had seemed no big fuss before) he feeds those to Crowley too. It doesn’t pair with the wine, but that doesn’t matter when the tips of Aziraphale’s fingers are just barely brushing his lip. He is a broken, broken man. One who is eating far too many apricot dumplings just to feel it again. “Tell me about the opera.”

“What?”   
  
“The opera. What was it about?”

“Oh. Oh!” Aziraphale laughs and sputters a bit, still dizzy from the wine, and clears his throat. “Well. There’s a girl. Lovely thing named Renata, who falls madly in love with an angel. And then, well, she tells him, and he’s not happy. But he tells her that he’ll meet her again, as a human. And this...dreadful man takes advantage of it. He makes her believe that he’s her angel. And then he just...leaves her. She spends her days looking for him, and he still casts her aside. And then she’s just...burned. At the stake. Poof!”

“Hm.” Crowley says. He wants to say a great many things. Mostly in accordance with  _ angel _ and  _ love _ . But he says Hm. And then he says: “Pass the bottle?”

It’s after not a timid count of glasses on both parties that Crowley goes to stand. “Right. I should get to sobering up. Head off. Got something to take care of tomorrow, a ah-” He makes a sound closest to  _ nggek  _ and waves his arm around unhelpfully, “political...mess or something, dunno-”

“Oh, well.” Aziraphale hesitates. Takes a breath and opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times. “There’s really no sense in leaving this late, is there?”

“Sure, no sense at all, but it’s just the one bed isn’t it? Ah- well, I could sleep on the floor, I suppose.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Aziraphale lifts up the other end of the blankets and pats it firmly, holds his head high in a drunken sense of authority. “You’ll only mope. Up then.”

Crowley doesn’t know what to say, and so he says nothing at all. He kicks off his shoes and tosses his jacket off somewhere, and then settles into the blank space next to Aziraphale. One of them snaps, he’s not sure who, and the lights are off. He can feel Aziraphale sink down to rest his head on the pillow. Both in the bed shifting and the brushing of their arms. He shudders. 

  
“Cold, are you?”

“In my blood, angel.” He tries to put an emphasis on his eyes, which gladly Aziraphale can make out in the dark (that’s one thing he misses about being an angel, such good eyes they’ve got.)

“Hm.” He shifts closer. Closer still. Crowley can’t quite believe it when Aziraphale gently, gentler than anything, pulls him into his arms, brings the covers up tall and tight. The closeness of it is such a relief, in fact, that he lets out a sigh he’s been holding for 6,000 years (give or take.) “Better?”

Crowley tries to hum, but it comes out as more of a whimper. Either way, Aziraphale rests his chin atop Crowley’s head and falls asleep there exactly two and a half minutes later. Crowley does not sleep. He does, however, pretend to come morning. He feigns sleep for about twelve minutes before Aziraphale rolls back his shoulders and yawns, gives Crowley a little squeeze before he turns and sighs. 

“Good morning!”

“...Morning.”

This is not, mind you, the first time the two have slept in each other’s presence. Crowley has taken to staying at A. Z. Fell And Co. Antiquarian and Unusual Books many times. The difference is that the bookshop has a couch. A stiff one, admittedly, one that leaves his back sore. But never has he shared a bed with Aziraphale. 

“Would you like to do something? If your...temptation won’t be needing you?”

“Do what?”   
  
“Oh, I don’t know. A museum, a gallery. Something. I’m here another four days and I’ll be terribly lonely.” He’s got that cheeky smile Crowley loves to draw out when possible, and it’s clear he’s gotten up on the very right side of the bed.

Crowley scratches at his chin. “No, can’t have that.”

They flip a coin between the ferris wheel and Krieau, because Aziraphale hasn’t gotten to ride since the 18th century and he really does miss that old thoroughbred he’d called Dandy. He wins on heads.

Crowley does not much like horseback riding. But they go to the ferris wheel the next day, where Aziraphale worries for the height and squeaks each time it moves too suddenly. And Belvedere Schlossgarten the day after, where Aziraphale coos over the flowers, and Crowley considers getting plants of his own on his return to London. And each night they drink, they eat, and Crowley lays sleepless in a hotel bed in Aziraphale’s arms.

It’s just after they’ve returned from the garden, stumbling through the hotel room door and laughing amongst themselves, that something shifts. In the atmosphere, maybe, or tectonic plates, or a shuffle of tarot cards to pull the lovers. But Crowley’s got only half a mind off some smooth cherry wine and enough heart for the two of them, and they only stare for a moment before Aziraphale grabs him by his loosely fitted tie and kisses him. In all honesty, it’s not what he thought it’d be. It’s not earth shattering, it doesn’t send his lungs into a frenzy or make his wings shoot out, and an angel’s kiss isn’t enough to drag him up from hell and reinstate him. But it’s some sort of heaven, this, and by god Crowley’ll take anything he can get as long as it’s from him.

Come the last day of Aziraphale’s stay, Crowley has succeeded in tempting no one. Well. One person, but not the intended reciprocant. Either way, Aziraphale is holding him like he’ll fall apart if he doesn’t, and the sun is coming through the window just so, and he’s starting to understand all that poetry nonsense. He’s entertaining the thought of asking him to let them stay like this all day, savor it, when Aziraphale starts up and gasps. “I’m- Oh dear, I’m very nearly too late- do get my coat, would you? Oh- Oh, hold on Magdalena, I’ll be there in a jiff, no time at all-”

“What are you  _ on  _ about?”

“I- My assignment. I was meant to be at the canal er- three or so minutes ago, Lord, I’ll be too late, won’t I-”

“Angel, angel, angel,  _ breathe.”  _ Crowley hops around fitting his shoe on. “Come on then, I’ll give you a lift.”

Aziraphale looks him stonely in the eye. “Drive like a little girl’s life depends on it.”

“...Oddly specific.”

“It is.”

“...Oh?” Crowley pauses in tugging on his jacket. “Oh! Oh no-”

And so he does. With no shortage of honks and swerving, they arrive at the canal quicker than should be possible (and alright, he may have worked up a little something, but demonic miracles can be used sparsely if he has any say in it.) There is bubbling beneath the surface, a barely discernible body trying to force itself afloat, and a boat pulled off with a screaming woman inside. So he reckons he’s found the right place. Aziraphale sheds his jacket and lunges in, wades around blindly for a few moments before he finds her. Her chest is ragged and wracked, and he nearly sobs to look at her. She can’t have been any older than seven. He pushes the wet and matted hair from her face, and with a nod her eyes shoot open, her lungs clear as day. He swims (carefully, clutching her to his chest) to the boat, and helps to bring the girl aboard. With a tearful kiss on the cheek from Mrs. Becker, he returns to Crowley miraculously dry and wiping away stubborn tears. “They always get me, these sorts.”

“You did wonderfully, angel.” They walk a few paces back to the bentley. “Why send you all this way though, your lot?”   
  


“I’d like to say it’s because she had a whole life to live, but it’s the Great Plan. She’s got a part to play, somewhere in there. Something small, I’d bet, but a part.”

“Lucky her.”

“Quite.”

It’s awkward, most of the ride back. He’d hoped music would help, but the radio’s not got much good on and Aziraphale likes to call anything that isn’t classical "jazz." He doesn't have much to pack when they come back to the room, though. He just tells Crowley to wait a moment while he puts a couple extra shirts in a small suitcase. Then, he sits on the edge of the bed and just sort of stares off. 

"...Aziraphale?"

He starts and jumps what must've been a good few inches in the air before he turns to Crowley wide eyed. "Yes, dear boy?"

"...So, something's wrong."

"Whatever makes you think that?"

"Well." He gestures to Aziraphale's whole demeanor and is met with lips pressed into a thin, straight line.

"Oh, you needn't worry." He pats his thighs and sighs with a certain air of determination. "Right. Take me somewhere? Before I'm off."

Crowley half wants to grab him by the shoulders and sit him back down on the bed until he meets his eye and tells him what's on his mind, but what comes out is: "Of course, angel,” and a quick but endless kiss.

It's a concert hall they settle on, in the end. It's great, big, and gorgeous, love in every detail, every crevice of it. The love of it all is so great, in fact, that it nearly knocks Aziraphale off his feet. And so he grabs to Crowley for purchase, arm in arm just like that first night. "Can you feel it, Crowley?"

He can't. Not in the sense that Azirpahale can, at least. But he sees the people dancing, he hears the orchestral swell, he sees every carved and woven, painted wall. He feels the fingertips of an angel tracing circles on his sleeve. "I can."

"Dance with me? Please?"

It's with no trace of consideration that Crowley lets himself be drawn into a sway, Aziraphale leading them into the crowd of twirling, loving people. Crowley's dress is swishing along with them, nearly tripping him up if he thinks about it too hard, but at least his hair is done up and out of his face. Aziraphale smiles at him. Not a great big beaming, not one that glows and takes up the whole room. Something secret. Something just for them.

"Vienna, city of my dreams."

"Hm?"

"The song they're playing." Aziraphale reaches to tuck a fly-away strand behind Crowley's ear as he turns them in a half spin. "Quite appropriately named, I think."

Crowley laughs, louder than he’d intended for the setting. “Yeah, they got something right.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes as they move in gentle steps, letting the music carry them wherever it wishes they should go. "If I had any choice in it, I'd stay. Fine music. Fine food. Fine company."

"Then stay," Crowley feels a bit pathetic for his pleading, but he's not above much for his angel. "Just another night with me."

Aziraphale opens his eyes, then. He gives Crowley a short, sad smile. "I'm afraid not. Not tonight, dear."

It's a loud silence between them. Even with the brass on stage and the murmuring people and drinks ever being poured and clinked together, all around them, always. Aziraphale looks away for a moment and sucks in a breath. "...Pretend? Pretend with me?"

Crowley nods and gives his best impression of a smile. And so they keep dancing.  _ Vienna, City of my Dreams. _ Right. Damned Vienna. It must've been something in the air, or in that blasted sachertorte, that's gone and irreversibly mucked everything up. He'd had a chance of survival, before Vienna. Of making it out of this on the other end of some endless losing battle. But hope is a funny thing, and it laces itself between each pumping vein in his body. Hope that this means something. Hope that one day, maybe, they'll dance like this for as long as they like. Song after song, they lose themselves in this Cinderella romance, clock ever ticking toward midnight. The band wavers to a stop.

"I ought to be going."

"One more song?" Crowley leans to hesitantly press their foreheads together, feels the burn of Aziraphale's cheeks from there. "A parting gift?"

Here's the thing. In all of human history, in all of  _ all  _ of history, there has never been a song with no end. There is an attempt made, on a television show in 1992 involving many puppets, but even puppets run out of breath. And for another: it seems to be the way of the world that if you so sincerely want something to savor, it will pass by before you can catch it in your grip and keep it there, before you can even blink. Schubert's  _ Serenade,  _ which this particular orchestra happens to begin playing, has a duration of about five minutes and forty-eight seconds. To Crowley, it is but a handful of moments.

Aziraphale stays, desperately clinging to the last few notes. “Would you walk me out?”

“Don’t go.” Crowley says, and Aziraphale stares back at him. “Please. Heaven, hell, augh! It’s poppycock! Nonsense, all of it, blast ‘em-  _ this  _ makes sense.  _ Stay.” _

Aziraphale smiles. Stands, ever so slightly on his tiptoes, and presses a soft, stolen kiss to Crowley’s lips. “Walk me out?”

“...I need a drink.” Crowley drops the arms coiled tight and shaking around Aziraphale’s shoulders and stomps off, weaving through the waltzing of happy fucking couples. Some of them are married, he bets. His glasses grant him mercy when they shadow over the welling of his eyes. He gets himself a brandy, and he leans against the wall and watches an angel in a stupid cream colored waistcoat stand there for a moment, gather himself up, and walk out.

He gets his temptation that night, and it’s enough to keep his mind off of everything for the most part. Some aide to the Austrian president who needed to be swayed a certain way, he doesn’t really give a shit for politics. But the brandy buzz is nice, and if he gets dizzy enough he can pretend he’s in Aziraphale’s arms. And isn’t that a thought? He leaves in the morning, from a hotel room that is decidedly not the Palais Coburg, in a cold and empty bed and gone of any residual tipsiness. He’s en route to London within the hour.

In the coming years there is an unspoken agreement not to mention it. Some mutual understanding that it cannot, will not happen again. Once he’s found little things to piece back up what Aziraphale had taken with him then, he’s alright enough to stand on his feet. Mostly drink. Sometimes sleep he doesn’t need, or a good session of dramatics in his flat. But mostly lots and lots of drink.

Damned Vienna.

\------

_ Vienna, Austria. Two months after the world kept on keeping on. _

It’s warm. That’s the first thing Crowley notes, and he’s glad for it. London is always so dreary and he really does detest the cold, even if it’s born into him. They’re walking not arm in arm, but hand in hand through the streets. Although Crowley is perfectly fine presenting female (should he decide to do so) it is no longer a necessity to dance with Aziraphale in the concert halls, the gardens, to kiss him as he pleases over breakfast.

There are crepes in Vienna. They nearly rival those in Paris, but Aziraphale maintains that France is the only real way to do it. He still smiles round a bite of them, though. They’ve hardly gotten there and already Aziraphale is whisking him off here and there, begging to pop into this shop or take a walk in that park. It’s perhaps the most time the angel has deigned to spend with him at once in quite a while, and he shows no intention of stopping. He moves gracefully about, only pausing to admire the scenery or comment on something they might see or do, should it fit snugly into their schedule. Crowley, for the most part, stays remarkably quiet. It’s something he’s put into practice lately, and he’s really getting the hang of it. Just sitting back and watching, now that there’s not much to constantly fret about.

“-and oh, we’ve simply got to see a play, don’t you think, dearheart?” Aziraphale beams at him, swinging their arms between them as they walk along. Crowley stands to attention and fixes his glasses, trying his best to pretend he’d been fully listening.

“Ah yes. Of course.”

“...Please do listen, I am trying to make this a proper vacation.” He pouts beside him and snatches his hand back to cross his arms.

“Oh, I  _ am!” _

“Sure you are.” He huffs and hesitantly allows Crowley to snake his arm up to realign their hands. “I just want it to be perfect.”

“Won’t be if you worry about it.” He grumbles, and nudges Aziraphale with his shoulder. He really gets himself into a tizzy over the silliest things. It’s already perfect, he couldn’t imagine much better if he tried. Just his angel and the sun. Fine music, fine food…

“I really did miss it.” He stares off somewhere wistful, breathing in the air deep like it’s his last breath. “I almost came back, you know. A few years ago.”

“So did I.”

Aziraphale smiles softly. “Perhaps we might’ve run into each other.”

“We have a way of that, don’t we?”

They hit nearly every museum they can manage, starting with the Belvedere, which Aziraphale had been “positively dying” to attend. He spends a truly ungodly amount of time at each painting, staring and staring and whispering his thoughts to Crowley, all “Ah, I adored the Baroque,” (Crowley was indifferent) and “Was Schiele one of yours or mine?” (Hell’s, begrudgingly. Horrible man, neither side had wanted him.)

For an ageless being, Crowley feels...young. It’s all new again, the kick in his step, the creak in his bones soothed beneath a tender hand. Each night, again, he lays beside Aziraphale in reverence, half drunk and grinning into his shoulder. They’ve been to beaches and zoos, gardens and cafes, boat rides and double-decker bus tours and everything in between. They’ve exhausted every tourist attraction they’ve got the mind for, and so it’s however long left of drinking and laying around, content to stay wrapped up together for a good part of the day. It’s nice to lounge.

“Know why I didn’t come back round all this time?” Crowley murmurs to Aziraphale’s chest, which he’s partway buried in.

“Why’s that, darling?”

“Wouldn’t be the same.” He presses a kiss wherever his lips are. It’s mostly on Aziraphale’s robe. “Not without you.”

He tuts and combs a hand through Crowley’s hair, splayed out over his face. “You’re too kind to me.”

He very nearly snaps at him, something sharp about how  _ kind _ is not a word in his vocabulary, and the sentiment should extend to Aziraphale, but instead he says: “Never. Never too much. Never enough.”

The red in Aziraphale’s cheeks suits him nicely.

He’s dragged out of the hotel room the next morning, in spite of his whining. Aziraphale insists he’s planned out a day, and who is he to deny him that? And so here he is, thinking that if he’d put up a bit more protest, they might’ve lived. “That thing’s going to snap. We’ll be discorporated.”

“We will not! It’s a lovely view of the mountains, and I will not have us take a zipline.” He says, as if a cable car is much different. “We rode the ferris wheel, didn’t we?”

“Different! Extremely!” Crowley holds back the urge to swat at him, but knows he’s going to resign. There’s very little Aziraphale can’t convince him to do, cable cars included.

It is not, in the end, altogether terrible. He can concede that it was, in fact, a lovely view. Aziraphale let out little gasps every now and then and pointed out things he found especially beautiful, and Crowley feigned disinterest to maintain his point. By the time they were off the thing, he half wanted to climb back in and have it carry them back. He does not voice this, but Aziraphale seems inordinately pleased, so he suspects he knows. 

From there it’s all well deserved rest and the occasional call to Anathema, who demands that they tell her every detail as she is positively green with envy. (Aziraphale suggests that twin tickets for her and Newton could perhaps miraculously fall into their laps in the near future. Crowley rolls his eyes.) They omit that they spend most of it eating schnitzel on the balcony of their hotel room, as they figure she’d try and talk them into running about more than they already have, and with her way of words they’d most likely listen.

They don’t wind up running off to another concert hall this time around. It isn’t worth all the hassle, they think, and surely the brass bands can’t beat their last lineup. So (after they’ve dabbed the crumbs from the corners of their mouths and topped off a bottle of champagne) they settle for a dance on the balcony to the loud, lilting notes of a trumpet player on the street, pressed together and grinning while the sky goes soft blue to orange kissed pink. It’s no  _ Serenade,  _ but it’s fitting. Aziraphale stays this time, stays clung to him and swaying and whispering out any thought that comes to mind. 

They don’t recount that bit to Anathema, upon their return. That bit’s just for them.


End file.
